


A Kingly Gift

by SpaceWall



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Christmas, Friends to Lovers, M/M, One Shot, Romance, Stannis ‘I’m not panicking’ Baratheon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 04:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14866307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall
Summary: Stannis Baratheon gains some knowledge, phones a friend (or in this case a brother), and acts on said knowledge. Renly tolerates late night phone calls with a patience of a saint.





	A Kingly Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I know what month it is. Yes I’m writing Christmas fluff and No you can’t stop me. Also yes the title is a LOTR quote and you can’t stop me from doing that either.

It was the end of the world, and Davos was kissing him. 

It wasn’t the end of the world for anyone else. It was the end of the world for Stannis Baratheon, who was experiencing his first Christmas alone in more than a decade. It was the end of the world for Stannis, who had lost his wife- good riddance- and his daughter –markedly not- in less than six months. It was the end of the world because he had lost the election, had lost his family, and had moved to Scotland in the last six months. But now Davos was here, and they were kissing, and it was impossible. 

Stannis pushed him away. The life went out of Davos in an instant, and he stepped back. “I’m sorry, Stannis, I just- maybe I just misread the moment. I’m sorry.”

He fled, leaving Stannis standing in the living room, in front of a small plastic Christmas tree. Davos had insisted on the tree. Perhaps, in retrospect, the fact that Davos had insisted on Stannis’s holiday decorations and Stannis had listened should have been an indication that they’d been moving towards something more. Huh. He could go after Davos. But did he want to? Six hours ago, he didn’t even know he himself had any interest in Davos, let alone the other way around. And Stannis did have interest. He knew that now, in a way he never could have six months ago. He knew that Davos was the person who loved him best, who he loved best in turn, save for Shireen, the person he could never bear to lose and had not yet lost. It was overwhelming.

Stannis called the first person he could think of. 

“Loras Tyrell, can I help you?” 

Stannis checked to make sure he had called the right number. He had. “Is Renly there?”

There was a fumbling noise and then Renly said, “Loras, what time is it?” Before speaking into the phone. “Who is this?”

“Stannis,” he said, at the time as Loras muttered something in Renly’s other ear. 

“Two in the morning?” Renly shouted, directly into the phone. 

Stannis checked his watch. It was five after midnight, which, while not a socially acceptable time to phone someone, but also definitely didn’t qualify as two in the morning. 

“It’s only just after midnight, Renly.”

“In Scotland, maybe, but I’m on holiday with Loras’s family in Greece. Listen, is this important, or can it wait ‘til morning?”

Stannis sat down in front of the small, plastic Christmas tree. There were no presents, and nothing to suggest that this house was lived in, since it wasn’t. Save for Davos, either in the guest room or outside having a smoke, there was nobody in it but Stannis. 

“Davos kissed me.”

Renly must have covered the mic on his phone, because his words to Loras were muffled before he returned, perfectly clear, with, “I’m sorry, are you calling me at two in the fucking morning because you’re having a gay panic?”

“I’m not panicking,” Stannis corrected, because even if it technically wasn’t true, you couldn’t let your little brother get away with accusing you of not being a flawless bastion of self control. 

Renly actually laughed at him. Smug little shit. “Oh, so you’re just calling to give me notice that you’ve finally caught on and decided to hook up with Eye Candy. Is that it?” Then, quieter, he added, “Sorry love, I’ll slip outside so you can go back to sleep.” 

There was the sound of somebody walking across a room, and then a screen door opening and closing. 

“Eye Candy?” Stannis asked, when it was clear Renly was alone. 

Renly laughed again. “Come on, have you seen Davos? The man’s an absolute DILF.”

Stannis pulled the phone away from his ear so he couldn’t hear Renly cackling while he tried to compose a response. The worst part was, Renly wasn’t wrong. “Please, never, ever say that word again.”

Renly, to his credit, seemed to notice some of the underlying stress in Stannis’s voice and sobered up. “So. Davos kissed you. You think he’s hot. You’re divorced. What’s the problem?”

“I just- I’m not-”

Renly cut him off. “So help me god Stannis, if you say that you’re not gay, I’ll fly to Scotland myself and shake some sense into you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“No, but I would call Brienne, and I think that would be worse.”

Stannis imagined Brienne Tarth taking the train all the way up from London just to hassle him on Renly’s behalf, and shuddered involuntarily. She was a sweet person at heart, but she had also played rugby all through university and it showed. If Renly asked her to shake some sense into Stannis, she could do it literally.

“How is the weather in Greece?” Stannis asked, purely to change the subject. 

“I’ll wager it’s a hell of a lot better than the weather in Scotland, if less suited to the season. Is it snowing?”

Stannis, suspecting Davos might be out back, went and stuck his head out the front door. “It is. Might be a snow-in tomorrow.” He closed the door just as quick. 

Renly laughed. “Well, that’s very romantic. Snowed in on Christmas with your new boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Renly sighed, and there was the sound of someone pulling out a metal chair. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? Because I’ve been reading homoerotic subtext into your relationship with Davos for years, and it’s not just because you’ve always called him your ‘partner’.” 

Stannis sat on the small bench in the front hallway, and pressed the phone closer to his ear. “There isn’t a beginning, that’s the thing. I invited Davos up for the holidays, and I didn’t think he’d show, only he did. I guess Marya has the kids for the first half of the break this year. Anyways, we were talking about how I miss Shireen, and how I don’t miss Selyse, and I said that I thought Davos was the only important person left in my life, and-”

“And he kissed you. Then what? Did you run away and call me? Are you hiding up on the roof or something? Go put a coat on, Stannis, it’s got to be, what, minus ten out there, minimum.”

Stannis smiled. That was why he had called Renly. Renly was the only person in his whole world who would have reacted with such a combination of calm amusement and absolute support. 

“I panicked. So help me god if you say it was a gay panic again I’ll call Margaery and get her to come hit you over the head. It wasn’t the gay part that was panic-y. It was the fact that I had literally never considered Davos as a romantic or sexual partner until that moment.”

Renly sighed again, but this seemed less disappointed than before. “Are you considering it now?”

Stannis thunked his head back against the wall. “No, Renly, I called you to tell you that the kindest, sweetest, most devoted person I have ever known propositioned me, and I didn’t think twice before turning him down. My closest friend of twenty fucking years, who is a thousand times the man I will ever be or have ever been, and it was an instant no.”

“Okay, so you’re considering it. He’s beautiful, you share a strong personal connection, and he thinks you’re the bees’ knees, so what’s stopping you?”

And wasn’t that the crux of the problem. “Nothing is stopping me. I just-”

“Hey- hey, hey, hey- Stannis. It’s okay. I- are you crying?”

“No,” Stannis managed to choke out, and braced his head, like was assuming crash positions on an airplane. He was absolutely not admitting to Renly that he was crying. Ever. 

Renly didn’t call him out on the lie, though he sounded like he wanted to. “You know that this isn’t like with Selyse, yeah? Now that you’ve divorced her, I can say to you what I’ve wanted to say for years. You literally could not have picked someone less compatible. And what’s more, I think she’s a fucking bitch whose heart is as frozen as the north pole.”

“Renly,” Stannis admonished, for form’s sake, though he could not stop a watery laugh.

“No, shut up, I’m not done. She always brought out the worst in you, she’s a rampant homophobe, I’m absolutely certain that red-head friend of hers is in a cult, and the shit she says about Shireen behind her back is un-fucking-forgivable. Davos would die before he said a word of it. Oh, and that reminds me, before I forget, Margaery’s new girlfriend specializes in child welfare stuff. I gave her your number. She says she has a new angle for you to think about.”

“Thank you,” Stannis said, automatically, and then, “wait, did you just say the Melisandre is in a cult?”

Renly gave him the verbal equivalent of a shrug and then said, “that’s not the important bit. The important bit is that even if this doesn’t work with Davos, he still won’t leave you. Because he’s your best friend. If you don’t want this, I’m sure he’ll let it go, but if you do want it-”

“If I want it, I should go now. Tell him.”

Renly’s tone seemed to brighten. “Goodnight, Stannis. Goodnight, and good luck.”

“Goodnight, Renly,” Stannis started to say, but Renly hung up before he was done. Stannis sat there for at least a minute, staring at the empty phone screen. It was almost half-past twelve, very early Christmas morning. Stannis hadn’t been up this late on Christmas since the year they’d gotten Shireen a Queen Nymeria’s Castle for her dolls, and had spent hours trying to put it together. Not with Selyse. She hadn’t cared. No, Davos had been there for that too, same as he had been for every other important moment in Stannis’s life. And Stannis hadn’t even noticed. Idiot. 

The question of whether Davos had gone outside or upstairs remained, but hedging his bet, Stannis slipped his boots on, grabbed a coat from the coatrack, and tried the back porch. He found Davos, still wearing nothing thicker than a fleece, standing at the very edge of the deck.

“You’re not smoking,” Stannis said, because he didn’t have anything better to say. 

“Kids kept complaining about it. Said I was going to die of cancer and then where would they be? Besides, I came out here for fresh air, and that might defeat the purpose a bit.”

Stannis took his coat off, and wrapped it around Davos’s shoulders. Renly was right about it being too cold to be outside without one. It was still snowing, the ground blanketed already with a fresh layer. If it kept up like this, by morning, there would be no trace that the two of them had ever been outside at all. 

“I never liked it either.”

“I know.”

Davos slipped his arms through the sleeves of the coat, and leant towards Stannis. By instinct more than anything else, Stannis wrapped his arms around Davos in turn. 

“I called Renly.”

Davos hummed an acknowledgement. “It must be the middle of the night over there. Did he answer?”

Which raised the question, “how do you know about Renly’s travel plans, but I don’t? And yeah, he did. Or, well, Loras did, and that’s close enough.”

Davos laughed, just a little, and leant closer to Stannis. “Renly’s on the Tyrell Family Vacation. They go every year. It was Spain last year, I think. One of Oberyn’s daughters is in Devan’s class, and apparently she’s been talking about Greece for months. It was his, Elleria and Willas’s choice this year, I gather.”

Stannis grabbed Davos’s hands, and tried to massage some warmth back into them. The hand with the missing fingers got stiff easily, and hurt in the cold. Davos must have been genuinely distressed to have run outside without gloves or mittens. 

“I’m sorry for panicking. I just- it’s been a tough year, and you’re basically the only person in my life who hasn’t fucked right off.”

“Bad timing. I know. We can just pretend it never happened, and talk about it in six months. Or never. Never works.” There was something strained in Davos’s voice, and Stannis wondered, not for the first time, if he’d been crying too. 

“No.”

Davos turned to face him. They were standing very, very close together. If Stannis leant down, just a little, he could feel the stubble on Davos’s cheeks. 

“Stannis?”

“I said, no. I don’t want to pretend it never happened. I want you to kiss me again, and then I want you to take me to bed, if you’re amenable. And then I want to wake up beside you tomorrow, and we’ll make breakfast, and you’ll skype with Marya and the kids, and I’ll call Shireen when I’m sure Selyse will be distracted, and then I’ll call Renly so I can admit that he was right all alone, the little shit, and then when we’re done with all that, I want you to take me back to bed. We can figure out what to do from there.”

Davos leant up and kissed him, his lips rough, but his hands gentle as he pulled Stannis close. When he pulled away, he whispered, “do you want me to stay?”

“Can you stay? I mean, the kids, your work?”

“Marya and I can work something out. She’s wanted to move up here for years, be closer to her folks. She stayed in London because I stayed in London. And as for work, a lovely young fellow by the name of ‘Snow’ just asked me to run his campaign for him.”

“Trading the old politician in for a younger model?”

Davos kissed him again, harder this time. His reached up to comb through Stannis’s hair. “Trading the old politician in for something much better, I’m hoping.”

If they followed Stannis’s itinerary almost to the letter, that was nobody’s business but theirs.

**Author's Note:**

> God I just love Stannis so much and y’all should too.


End file.
